Luca Prodan

He went to the same elite boarding school in Scotland as the future King of England, and he died at thirty-four in a rented room in the San Telmo neighbourhood of Buenos Aires, leaving the rock of the south one of its founding voices. Between those two points sits one of the most improbable and most beloved stories in all of Latin American music. It is Luca Prodan's.

The boy who ran away from Gordonstoun

Luca was born in Rome in 1953, into a family that came from everywhere: Italian, Turkish and Scottish roots, a family past in Shanghai. He was sent to Gordonstoun, the Scottish boarding school where Prince Charles also studied — legend says Luca once punched him, though that belongs to the realm of myth. What is certain is that he hated the place, and at sixteen he ran away; his family went as far as asking Interpol to look for him. He washed up in London, worked in a record shop, and there, in the middle of the ferment, his ear was formed: dub, reggae, punk, post-punk, all of it while it was actually happening around him. But London also left the wound: he fell into heroin, and his sister Claudia's suicide sank him further, as far as an overdose coma. In his mid-twenties he was already carrying a whole life.

A photograph of some hills

And then came the thing that changes this story. His friend Timmy McKern, a Scottish-Argentine he had met at school, had gone to live in the hills of Córdoba, and posted him a photograph of his family among those hills. Luca looked at that photo — the green, the mountains, the calm — and crossed the Atlantic after it, in 1980, to save his own life. That is not an exaggeration: he came fleeing the needle, looking for somewhere he could breathe. He arrived in the Argentina of the dictatorship's final years, settled first in the quiet of Traslasierra, and there, far from everything, started again.

The real thing, first hand

What he did next is what makes him great. In 1982 he formed Sumo, and gave Argentine rock something it did not have: the real thing, first hand. While new wave, reggae, dub and post-punk reached the south from far away, like a rumour of what was playing up north, Luca had lived them, in London, as they were being born, and he brought them in his body, not as an echo. He sang in English and in Spanish, with a voice worn in exactly the right places, a voice that sounded like it had genuinely lived. And underneath was that reggae foundation, that smoke, that groove that raised the hairs on your arms. In a country where music in English was suspect, Luca sang in English and packed the underground of Café Einstein, alongside Los Redonditos de Ricota and Los Twist, in the darkest years.

Five years, three albums, a whole house

In barely five years he built a house Argentine rock still lives in. Three albums in three years: "Divididos por la felicidad", from 1985 — the name a nod to Joy Division — with "La rubia tarada", which Rolling Stone went on to place among the greatest albums in Argentine rock history; "Llegando los monos", from 1986, full of anthems; and "After chabón", from 1987. Plus an epic concert at Obras that sealed his standing. Little work, on paper. Enormous, in what it left behind.

Here goes the last one

The end came fast, and it has to be told truthfully, not as romantic legend. The drinking grew with the fame: he had traded London's heroin for Buenos Aires gin, and his body wore away. His last concert was on 20 December 1987, at the Club Atlético Los Andes stadium, sharing the bill with Los Violadores, in front of barely five hundred people; before one of the final songs, he said "here goes the last one". And it was. Two days later he was found dead in his rented room in San Telmo, at thirty-four, of cardiac arrest caused by internal bleeding from cirrhosis. He did not die as a symbol or as a rock martyr: he died a man who had carried too much for too long, and who in five hurried years gave more than many give in a lifetime. Out of the pieces of Sumo came two enormous bands, Divididos and Las Pelotas: even in ending, he sowed music.

The stone from the hills

Luca is buried in Avellaneda, under an enormous stone brought down from those hills in Córdoba he loved so much — the same hills a photograph put in front of him to drag him across an ocean. And his voice is still there, in that reggae foundation, in the chorus of "La rubia tarada", in the smoke. If at some point, at a party or on the radio, that groove moved something in you without your quite knowing where the accent came from, you have already met Luca: a European who chose the south, stayed for good, and left us a voice that belonged to the world and became ours.

This piece discusses suicide, heroin addiction and an overdose. If you are going through a difficult time or having thoughts of harming yourself, you are not alone and help is available. In Chile you can call *4141 free of charge, the Ministry of Health's suicide-prevention line, available 24 hours a day.

Sources

Luca George Prodan (Rome, 17 May 1953 – San Telmo, Buenos Aires, 22 December 1987) was an Italian-Scottish musician based in Argentina, leader and voice of Sumo. From a family with Italian, Turkish and Scottish roots and a past in China, he studied at the Scottish boarding school Gordonstoun, the same as Prince Charles; the anecdote that he punched him circulates as legend and is unconfirmed. He ran away from school at 16; he lived in London, where he worked in a record shop and developed his taste for dub, reggae and punk, and where he developed his heroin addiction, worsened after his sister Claudia's suicide. In 1980 he emigrated to Argentina, to Traslasierra, Córdoba, following his friend Timmy McKern. He formed Sumo in 1982, a key band of the Argentine underground during the dictatorship, which introduced new wave, reggae, dub and post-punk; part of its repertoire was in English. Albums: "Corpiños en la madrugada" (demo, 1983), "Divididos por la felicidad" (1985, with "La rubia tarada"; the title alludes to Joy Division, and Rolling Stone placed it among the best albums in Argentine rock), "Llegando los monos" (1986) and "After chabón" (1987). His last concert was on 20 December 1987 at the Club Atlético Los Andes stadium, sharing the bill with Los Violadores in front of around 500 people; he died on 22 December, aged 34, of cardiac arrest attributed to internal bleeding caused by hepatic cirrhosis (alternative, unconfirmed accounts exist). After his death Sumo dissolved and its members went on to form Divididos and Las Pelotas. He is buried in Avellaneda. No song lyrics are reproduced, for copyright reasons. Sourced from Wikipedia, Ámbito, Perfil, Aire de Santa Fe and other press coverage.